Harper Leaves Canada’s Youth To Fend For Themselves

by NationTalk onSeptember 16, 2009414 Views

15 September 2009

OTTAWA – The diversion of youth job creation funding to Reform-Conservative ridings resulted in lost opportunities for Canada’s youth, contributing to the worst student job crisis in history, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said today.“Just as they did with program funding for infrastructure, the disabled, and seniors, the Stephen Harper’s Reform-Conservatives put their own partisan interests ahead of young people looking for work experience,” said Mr. Trudeau.

The Liberal Opposition recently analyzed all Youth Skills Link program announcements from January to the end of August of this year and found that 75 per cent of the announcements landed in Conservative-held ridings.

At an Ottawa roundtable with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, Mr. Trudeau discussed the impact of record high student unemployment as students resume college and university.

Canada’s youth have been amongst the hardest hit by this recession, with the student unemployment rate currently sitting at a staggering 20 percent. Some 210,000 young Canadians have lost their jobs over the course the past year, the most losses of any group in this country.

“Students are concerned about how they will finance their return to school this fall,” said Mr. Trudeau. “Too many students looking for work this summer couldn’t find jobs to pay for university or college, let alone gain relevant work experience for their futures.

“This self-serving government simply doesn’t care about the best interests of Canadians – yet another reason for the Liberals’ loss of confidence in Stephen Harper.”
“Young Canadians deserve better. Canada can, and must, do better,” he said.